


Team-Building

by Shadaras



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Robot Feels, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22103302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: Snippets of time as the members of SBBR found themselves on Partizan and became a team.
Relationships: Thisbe & Valence, Thisbe & Valence & Kal'mera Broun
Kudos: 15





	Team-Building

**Author's Note:**

> please forgive my cheerful mangling of code; I do not know how to code but I wanted/needed the aesthetic for this to make any sense at all.

**  
>>> access server :: SBBR**

**> >> follow path :: personnel.private**

**> >> open file :: “Team-Building”  
**  
_...running..._

_displaying file now:_

///BROUN\\\\\

When they left Apostalos, Kal’mera Broun stopped caring about the customs of their culture so much. Not enough to refute the eidolon they’d chosen (Amm’ekal Degrii, who was one of the first Apostalisians to find a prominent position in AdArms, who helped broaden what good mechanics could look like, who helped legitimize Apostolisian technology in the eyes of Divinity), but enough to actively refuse to be called by that name.

Instead they took the Common Divinity Neutral: They were Kal’mera Broun, whose name clearly said they were Apostolisian but who never used their eidolon name or their given name. _Broun_ , they said to others again and again. _Call me Broun_.

They rebuilt their mech from the ground up and found odd jobs with it. People trusted a person who could refurbish a whole mech to repair one, which helped. People also found their other skill-sets useful: Making and utilizing custom armaments gave you a name in the mercenary world, it turned out.

None of which explained exactly how they ended up with the crew they did, but Broun didn’t mind. SBBR was full of misfits, but at least here they were the person the greater world understood best. It was a nice change from always feeling like they were just a little _wrong_ somehow, like they’d never fit in.

(Sometimes they weren’t sure they fit in with SBBR either, but they could make this into a home they wanted if they tried, and that was still better than anywhere else they’d tried to land.)

///VALENCE\\\\\

Valence walked out of the jumpgate and everything—

Stopped. The world was blank and quiet, save for the thrum that drowned out the rest. Valence fell to their knees, and _listened_ , and Perennial deafened them. The rest of the day was a blur as they rerouted systems and priorities and finally, _finally_ , understood why the rest of the galaxy was spoken only as a place of mythic anger and distrust.

Later, Valence learned the history of the Divine Principality and the Perennial Wave and compared it to the history the Nobel taught. It lined up, even if the Nobel had reacted by turning their technology into their faith and maintaining it with devotion instead of just _letting it fail_.

They walked the Prophet’s Path because it was the closest place to understanding they had, and because the faith— That some something they could understand, more than the Divines of the Principality. The world was full of miracles, Valence had always been told, but what the Prophet did—

That was something else entirely.

But in the Principality you had to work, and Valence didn’t understand all the social norms of the Principality, and so they ended up finding work as a freelancer. When they fell in with Kal’mera Broun, the Apostolisian’s easy smile and refusal to talk about their past meshed well with Valence’s equal disinterest in talking about personal history. They were here, and that was enough for Broun to know.

Broun helped them figure out their mech—finding, modifying, repairing—though Valence did the coding themself. They didn’t want anyone else to touch it, not with how unusual the Principality both their code and their way of interacting with it. Better to keep that wholly to themself.

Valence brought Thisbe into the team, though, when Broun didn’t think it would be a help.

Thisbe proved her worth the very next job, and Valence didn’t need to smile to feel satisfaction at the stiff way Broun thanked Thisbe and the light of blossoming personhood in Thisbe’s eyes.

///THISBE\\\\\

Thisbe waits. Thisbe is good at waiting. She was designed to work, and she is good at working, too, but the people who built her could not always be present, so she was designed to be good at waiting for them.

She works for The Society of Banners and Bright Returns right now. They are interesting. Unusual. (In her system, something whispers: _You are unusual too,_ it says, and she ignores it because it is not input she understands.) An Apostolisian is not unusual. Valence is.

Her files have nothing on _The Nobel_ except what Valence has told her. It is not illuminating. The files of inference based on how Valence acts hold more useful detail, such as:

  * Valence talks to THISBE.unit in the same way Valence talks to BROUN.owner
  * Valence always wears a mask.
  * Valence treats robots with automatic respect.



Sometimes Thisbe wonders if Valence is also synthetic. Her scanners don’t show anything. Her scanners don’t know much of anything about what Valence is like underneath their clothing: The mask is synthetic material and the cloak is majority-organic and there is _nothing comprehensible_ behind those things.

Thisbe stops looking.

Thisbe acts to the best of her ability. Thisbe knows how to solve problems. She’s seen a lot of them, and she learned from them.

She stands between an explosion and the members of SBBR (memory: _“Just say Saber,” BROUN.owner says, exasperated, covered in oil and grease as they repair the underside of the mech Thisbe is holding. “Stop wasting time with the full name. We all know what you mean.”_ ) and the next day Valence appears while BROUN.owner is repairing the (minimal) damage to her exterior and asks, with an abruptness she is used to, if Thisbe wants to help with their next job.

Thisbe remembers very clearly the stress Valence placed on the word _want_ and how viciously they turned on BROUN.owner when BROUN.owner snorted and told them not to bother.

Thisbe told Valence _Yes_.

///SBBR\\\\\

**> >> play video :: “First Job”**

_...accessing..._

_displaying file momentarily. WARNING: Disjointed Coverage._

Exterior:  
Thisbe advances on the Nideo grunts as Broun fires missiles over her head from the Three Cheers!!! The Hippocampus is parked just outside a run-down laboratory.

Interior:  
Chemical laboratory. Valence swears and apologises to an equiaxed scientist, then very politely tells ver that it’s time to leave.

Mech-Mounted Camera:  
The view swings wildly as the mech weaves and jumps through traffic. Ahead is a spaceport. There are sirens and the sounds of a chase.

Audio File:  
“Is it always this exciting?”

“No.”

[a long pause. the sound of running water.]

“Do you want it to be?”

“I don’t understand how to want. Do you want it to be?”

[laughter] “Thisbe, you wanted to join us. That’s wanting. I like it when jobs are simple. That wasn’t simple.”

“You said it was fun.”

“It was.” [sigh] “Thisbe, I can have fun but also like it better when jobs are boring and I’m not worrying if someone will die.”

“I don’t like it when your life is in danger.”

“I know.” [metal knocks against metal] “I don’t like it either.”

“I can keep you safe.”

“Keep yourself safe too, okay?”

“Is that important to you?”

“Yeah, Thisbe, it is. You’re my friend.”

[silence. the video ends.]

_END FILE: “First Job”_


End file.
